Mr. Jerry Grant:

SI 527, the regulations under the 2007 Act, enacted in 2008, contains provisions for waste notice processes following detection of a leak. Again, if there is no meter, one obviously must first find the house where there is excessive use. Very often councils have identified such houses only on receipt of a complaint from a neighbour who was experiencing low pressure, which is a common side-effect of high leakage in a property. The process then, prior to the establishment of Irish Water, was to issue a series of statutory notices, at the end of which there were enforcement options provided for in the regulations. It was used from time to time, predominantly where high leakage had an adverse impact on a neighbour.